The Same Darkness as the Beast
by CV3
Summary: Set Season 2. The past never stays past for a hunter. With John's death still fresh, Sam and Dean hunt a werewolf on a killing spree in Louisiana. It's a simple job that gets complicated when connected to a werewolf John hunted in the same town eleven years ago, in a way that places both their lives in danger.
1. Prologue

Something was wrong. Sluggishly, Sam's fogged mind tried to concentrate on what that might be, when several things hit him at once like an ambush. He snapped upright. His wrists caught with a sharp chink, the cold circles of the cuffs glittering weirdly in his blurred vision. Sam snapped his head around him, pain almost bouncing his sight back into darkness, questions tearing at him.

What happened? Where was he? Where was Dean?

And where the hell was their unexpected guest, the second werewolf?

For whatever reason, out of whatever ingrained instinct, his eyes found his brother and his focus sharpened. Oh God, Dean. His brother was sitting, his hands tied behind his back, slumped to one side, head hanging, eyes closed. Shadows fell beneath Dean's eyes and his face was white. Blood clotted in his hair and covered one side of his face. He wasn't moving. Sam swallowed panic and nausea, whether from the sight of his brother or the likely concussion, he didn't know. He tugged at the cuffs, the chain snapping hard around the skeletal steel of a busted bed frame.

Sam raised his wide eyes to regard the man before him.


	2. Part one - The Hunt

_Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 10:23am._

Dean swung the motel door open and tossed his duffle onto the nearest bed.

"Let's grub up, I'm starving."

Sam followed more slowly, lowering his own backpack onto his bed and shooting a glance at Dean as he headed for the bathroom.

He'd said barely a word about it. Sam had pushed and pushed him, and still Dean brushed the whole thing off with a choice of either anger or sarcasm. Sam highly doubted it, but maybe he was right and this was Sam's issue, not Dean's. Maybe this was Sam's guilt at the way he had left things with Dad, and his brother really was okay. Sam gave a snort of laughter. Yeah right, and monkeys fly.

Dean came out of the bathroom drying his hands.

"What're you doing? We gotta chow, now, before you get me stuck in any research."

"Not much to research," Sam replied dully as Dean rifled through his duffle, no doubt looking for his .45. "Werewolf, garden variety. Silver bullet to the heart, call 911 on the body, go home."

"Wow, Sam, your enthusiasm is really rubbing off on me, I can hardly wait."

Dean levelled his eyes at Sam as his little brother shrugged him off.

"What's with you? You don't think we should actually hunt this thing before it kills anyone else?"

Dead people was just the problem now, wasn't it, Sam thought darkly to himself. What's with him? Um, how about the fact that Dad just died and Dean was in complete denial?

"Nothing," was all he said.

"Whatever. Cut it out and let's go eat."

. .

. .

"Few hours till moonrise," Dean said, rubbing his hands together as a waitress set a plate in front of him. He was sitting facing the door in the booth of a small-time cafe. Sam sat opposite him, reading a newspaper.

"Looks like all the victims were found down by the river," he said. "First two were male, reading between the lines, looks like they had some ties to drug dealing."

"Good times."

"Then this latest one, female, known by the local PD for prostitution."

"I can see where this is going," Dean said with a lascivious smile.

Sam frowned at him.

"It's not going anywhere for much longer. We're taking this thing out. Tonight."

"Now that's my Sammy," Dean said with a smile, part sarcastic, part genuine. "Scourge of the supernatural, taking down the big bads all over town."

Sam frowned harder and Dean hid his smile behind a coffee cup.

"What else you got?"

"Not much, other than its definitely a werewolf. Hearts missing in all victims, slashes to the body, unidentifiable bite marks on all vics, and all aligning with the lunar cycle."

"Good, I'd rather avoid the monkey suits if possible."

Sam nodded, and Dean pushed back in his seat.

"Alright, so we go back to the motel, gear up, watch some pay-per-view and wait for dark."

. .

. .

Dean eased down the gentle decline down towards the river, making sure his shadow stayed out of the moonlight. Sam was behind him, gun drawn. There thankfully weren't many people this far down river, where several old piers jotted out over the muddy banks. Most of the area was long abandoned industrial properties, docks and warehouses once used for small import and export companies ferrying goods down river. Nowadays, it provided the ideal environment for the kinds of people who made up their list of victims. Shadows moved around by a jetty to the left, continuing into a boardwalk that led to one of the dark warehouses. Dean tilted his head at it, turning to catch Sam's nod. Dean slid from the shadows and down onto the rickety dock, cringing at the noise of the old wood creaking under his weight. Abstractly he thought about werewolves Vs vampires for difficulty in sneaking up on. He flattened himself against the outer wall, watching as a young woman drew what looked like a nervous thirty-something man toward the concealment of the warehouse. A moment later, the shadow of something followed, and somehow he doubted three was a party, here. It could have been a pimp, but he doubted that too, given the speed with which the shadow slipped from building to building, always keeping just out of sight of the couple, stalking them. Hunting them. This stretch of river was the wolf's hunting ground, the only place where bodies had started turning up heartless. It was more worth pursuing than not. And if it was a threesome, well he could embarrass Sam for walking in on it for at least a week.

"Let's go," he whispered to Sam, and heard the scuff of his brother's boots as he followed Dean's lead.

They kept to the wall inside, both watching as the woman lifted herself backwards onto an old shipping crate and drew the man toward her, fast hands making light work of his belt. She pulled the single tie on her midriff shirt, easily exposing her chest.

"Three hundred up front, gorgeous," she said with a smile.

The man returned it, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet.

There was a blur of movement, and the werewolf made its move. It sprang from the cover of the stacked crates and grabbed the man by the collar of his shirt, yanking him backwards with a yell. An instant later with a growled curse, Dean swung himself free of the cover of the crates, his gun trained on the werewolf's heart.

"Hey!" he barked at it.

The man scrambled around on the floor, obviously shocked, his head whipping between the werewolf and Dean before he made his feet and pelted out the door. Peripherally, Dean could hear the echo of his shoes as he ran down the pier.

The werewolf bore down on the hooker, who gave an ear-splitting shriek. The wolf swung back it's hand, claws huge and jagged, poised to tear her apart.

Dean could see Sam fanning out to cover the wolf's retreat out the back door out of the corner of his eye. Targeted victim for not, a werewolf was still all animal instinct, and it's was in its nature to assess the new threat. It turned, acid eyes on Dean, checking to cover Sam, teeth bared. It had once been a woman - one of the hookers who worked the docks, Dean imagined. It gave the strange, hissing growl of its monster form as its eyes fell on the gun, and turned its body slowly to face him. The wolf's would-be victim flickered frightened eyes over the brothers, caught on the werewolf, then sought out the door. She stumbled away from it as it moved to circle Dean, and ran screaming shrilly into the darkness.

The werewolf circled Dean, hissing low. Sam mirrored it, circling behind the monster, his gun trained.

"Good doggie," Dean said, baiting it to reveal its vulnerable chest.

The werewolf gave a hair-raising scream and attacked, running straight for him, and Dean fired two quick rounds. The werewolf screamed again, but it was clearly an expression of pain rather than rage. The bullets had hit flesh, but not heart. It skidded sideways with the impact of the bullets, dropping to all fours in front of a stack of crates as it turned again to Dean. Sam edged closer, his gun up, closing in and trapping the wolf in limited space. The acid blue eyes checked to Sam's movement, and legs coiled, it sprang at him. Sam got off one round, but it obviously didn't hit home as the wolf swiped at him, claws catching his shoulder. Sam gave an involuntary yelp of pain as he tripped to his knees with the impact of the monster's strike. He vaguely recognised Dean's gun enter his view as he fell, a few feet from the wolf's head. He fired one round that caught the werewolf in the ear, and it shrieked in pain and fell over sideways, taking its attention away from Sam. A weird random memory of Dean when they were kids was knocked into his mind. He must have been about eight, and some kid in one of their endless string of schools had taken an instant dislike to Sam and had no trouble in expressing it. He remembered the kid scuffling to his feet in the dirt and making a run for it, Dean smiling down at Sam. "No one messes with my little brother."

Sam shook reality back into his head and squinted up to find Dean still standing with his gun trained on the werewolf, which had responded to a bullet in the head by retreating into a crouch, reassessing Dean and simultaneously covering a clean shot to the chest. Sam retrieved his fallen gun just as the wolf made its move. It gave a blood-chilling war cry and launched into a mad kamikaze charge, the sheer stupidity of which took Dean by surprise. Sam took aim at the same time, but from his position Dean was behind it, and he couldn't risk the shot with the werewolf's speed. Dean's perspective on Sam was canted, and he was the better shot. He took quick aim and fired one round. The werewolf screamed in pain as the bullet found its heart, but the speed of the charge continued its momentum, and before he could react with anything more useful than a curse, the weight of the monster slammed Dean into the wall. He hit his head hard and all the air was forced out of him. Both man and beast went down, half the werewolf flopping down onto Dean. The last thing he heard before his lights flipped out was Sam calling his name.

. .

. .

Werewolf was a fairly straight forward hunt. Neither of them had any injuries to favour, anything to significantly disadvantage them, nothing else to account for it. So how the hell had this happened?

Sam made a dash for his brother, shoving the werewolf off him and double checking it was dead. Clearly, it was. Sam turned his attention to Dean, grabbing hold of his brother's face and turning it to get a better look at his head. Blood spilled down one side of his face from a cut somewhere in his hair. Sam shook his chin gently.

"Dean."

Dean gave no response, and Sam rolled him onto his back, away from the body of the wolf. Blood hadn't turned up anywhere else - there was blood on one side of Dean's shoulder and chest from the wolf, but that wasn't hurting his brother. The head wound must have just knocked him out.

"Okay," Sam whispered, partly to himself through Dean. "Okay, let's get you out of here."

He turned to see how far they had circled the werewolf into the open space of the warehouse, translating into how far he would have to shoulder his brother's weight, when something moved in his periphery, and Sam's eyes instinctively checked to follow it. The humanoid shadow suddenly loomed up from the cover of the stacked crates, and the last thought in Sam's head was that there must have been two of them. A hunting pair. And he was likely dead, as something cold and sharp hit him hard in the head. He blacked out.


	3. Part Two - The Hunted

Sam was panting, blinking hard at the stranger. He was hard to make out in the weak light, and Sam's eyes sought out the source in an old wick lamp on the dusty floor a few feet away. The stranger was sitting, reclining back into the dimness so the best view of him Sam had were a pair of boots, steel-capped with the leather almost buffed bald at the toes, a pair of old jeans with a hole in one knee, and the hem of a white cotton shirt. Gnarled hands, thin but wiry, extended over the arms of what appeared to be an ancient armchair. His face was lost in shadow.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Sam asked, inwardly cringing at how young he sounded, scared and shocked.

"Well now," answered a voice, the kind of deep Southern drawl that always sounded to Sam like a bad impression, reserved for TV evangelists and snake handlers. It was prejudicial but true that it often related to a particular kind of person - working class and rural. Sam's mind tripped over everything he remembered from the hunt, before someone or something had knocked his lights out. Where the hell could he have ended up? And here, cuffed to a bedframe with this guy?

"That son is a complicated question," continued the voice before Sam's mind could spin much further, snapping his attention back to his companion. The latter leaned forward, elbows on knees. The light crawled up the long sleeves of a close-fitting white cotton shirt and edged itself against the contours of his face like feline affection. Sam squinted at him. He looked roughly forty - and his approximate age wasn't everything about him the word described. His face was deeply lined and weatherbeaten, the lips thin, with the twist Sam had heard in his voice. A few days growth shadowed his sharp jaw and his dark eyes were hard. He had that quick, animalistic edge that warned Sam he may very well be in trouble, and moreso with his brother out of action.

"And given the nature of our - situation - here, I believe I should be taking the privilege of asking that question for myself."

He laced his hands, eyes on Sam, head slightly tilted. The dim light glittered deeply in his dark eyes.

"Sam," Sam conceded, buying some time as he subtly twisted his wrist, his fingers brushing the lock, eyes skittering for anything to pick it with. "And I want you to let me the hell out of these cuffs."

"Now now," his companion cautioned, waving a hand with almost the same amusement that twisted his lips into a slightly feline grin. Everything about this guy was reminding Sam of a street cat - thin and deceptively lazy on the surface, but tough and lethal underneath. Sam carefully stressed the chain.

"We'll get to that. And there ain't no point fixing to spring free, I got you locked down good and tight."

"What do you want?" Sam growled.

"We'll, Sam, what I'd like is for you to tell me a story. Think maybe you got somethin' to do with a story I thought ended in another life."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sam enunciated deliberately.

"I'll go first," the stranger responded, ignoring Sam. "Maybe I start this story for you, you can go on finish it."

He waved his fingers questioningly at Sam, nodded to himself, and canted his body to one side. Just when Sam was considering the alternate possibility that this guy had just completely lost his mind, the stranger tilted his head and confided "now, I was not always a righteous man, Sam. Was a time in my life when I done all the bad I could. Drugs, guns, crime, payin' to use women, even tuned up anyone what got in my way, or got what I needed. Man, woman, child I didn't care. I was a wild man, a lost man, you understand what I'm sayin' son?"

Sam was still, staring at him with a mixture of surprise, amusement, disbelief and horror - this wasn't happening. He expected the guy to slap a Bible and praise Jesus at any second. He was still unconscious, or had hit his head via werewolf so hard he was dreaming or hallucinating. Dean was probably right at that moment pinning his hands down, smiling apologetically at an admitting nurse and explaining he had a concussion.

"Yeah," was all he said.

"Okay," the stranger confirmed, warming to his tale. "So there I was, out down by the bayou this one night, lookin' to get some on the sly, when it happens. I was closing in on the deal and then - well then the eyes of Hell were right there, starin' me down. Maybe it was I was high and maybe I was gettin' mugged and it was just too dark to make it out, but I swear, what I saw was not human. It was a beast, you get what I'm sayin'? Eyes, like livin' lightning. Claws a inch long, teeth like huge fangs. It catches sight of the guy was dealin', makes right for him, swipin' me out of the way like I was nothin'. I watched, while that beast tore a healthy man limb from limb, and like the devil I thought it was, ate his heart clean outa his chest, right there, in front of me."

He stopped, giving Sam some suddenly much-needed time to absorb his words. Sam flickered his eyes around the floor, thinking. Right, so if this guy wasn't some stark raving psycho who was going to rape and kill them both, it was just likely that he had actually seen something. The description and MO were all wolf. Even his description of the wolf targeting the dealer and pushing him out of the way fit with the Id nature of a werewolf's motivations. It probably knew the dealer in human form, and when the moon turned, went after him. Maybe for the drugs, maybe he had screwed it on a deal, maybe he was a threat to someone it knew, there were plenty of possibilities. But he had to be sure. Family rule number one still stuck despite - despite Dad not being there to enforce it. We do what we do and shut up about it.

Sam pulled the stranger a tight smile.

"It's a good story. Why should I believe you?"

The stranger leant forward, his eyes glittering, and pulled the hem of his shirt up to his neck. An old tattoo of a woman, endowed in all the right places, straddling a smoking pistol was interrupted four times - by old, obviously deep scars. The four slashes of a werewolf's claws. Sam checked his eyes up to meet the dark eyes of his companion, above that hairpin of a smile now devoid of amusement.

"Because the beast left its mark on me that day son, and I never looked back."

"What do you mean?" Asked Sam, tone low. Another possibility was that this guy hadn't come into his life by accident. That somehow, if he had been touched by the supernatural before, than maybe he was involved. He didn't scream hunter, though. The truth was Sam had no idea what he was and that was making him uneasy. He had the advantage. Hell, he had them both trussed up like turkey. There was something ... Sam couldn't remember exactly. Dean had gone down with the wolf, and then the last thought in Sam's head was that the was two of them, and the other had jumped him before he could react. But unless Dean had killed it, too, why was he still alive? Why was Dean, if he'd been unconscious when the second werewolf jumped Sam? He had seen Dean go down. What exactly had happened, to end up here with his brother unconscious, cuffed and talking to a guy clawed by a werewolf obviously years ago? It didn't add up.

Sam stayed silent, watching the stranger with renewed caution, as he dropped his shirt and nodded at Sam.

"I was a dead man. The beast finished with the peddler and it came for me. That was when I saw _him._ He came from the same darkness as the beast, he raised his weapon, and he took it down. High or not, I ain't never gonna forget his face. Eyes like the darkness, he came and he slay that there devil."

He nodded, remembering.

"When I came to I was in the county ER, all strapped up. Couple medics had found me outside the hospital, covered in blood. Blood work came back, they knew about the junk, and I did my time for that. When they read the drugs they sent a preacher to talk to me, turn me back onto the path of the Lord. I dunno why, but I told him about the beast, and about the man. Preacher, he told me I was tweakin', it was my mind playin' tricks. Told me that the beast was everything about myself that belonged to the darkness. All the bad shit I done, all the people I hurt, conjured up like a demon that was inside me. He told me the man who slew that beast was the Lord in me, everything inside that was good, that wanted to do right. He said I had been given a choice. The good in me wanted to slay the bad, and I could be a good man."

He nodded, lost in memory, and Sam made himself still and silent.

The stranger shook his head, pulling in a breath and shifting the weight of his shoulders, his eyes settling on Sam once more.

"Now that made sense to me. No one at the hospital had seen any man, they said they was knife cuts, and I kept watch out from the pen to see if they found the body of the beast, but there was nothin'. Preacher came to see me every week, and he got me straight. Told me not to ignore the message I received that day. To allow it to change my life. Didn't matter that there wasn't really a beast, it was all a symbol like. And I did. I changed because of that. That man, whatever he was, saved me. Saved my body and my soul. And I put it all behind me."

His eyes bored into Sam, and suddenly all softness slipped out of his expression, sending Sam into equally sudden goosebumps. He was off the chair and crouching close to Sam before he could blink, before he could stop his natural recoil. The underlying danger to this guy was written all over him, powering his oddly graceful movements. He was just out of Sam's swing. Somehow he doubted that was an accident, either.

"I put it behind me, y'hear? It was eleven damn years ago. I made my peace with the Lord and I made a right life for myself. I pay my taxes and hold down a job and always pony up with the rent. Even have a woman to share my bed at night by her own accord, if you can believe."

His sharp, dark eyes glittered out at Sam, expression hard.

"That was until last week. That was until I heard about those people, all scratched up, like I had been. 'Till one of 'em lived, and said she saw the beast."

Sam involuntarily closed his eyes. Damn, if this job didn't come back to bite him in the ass in so many ways. Some turned hunter, others sheltered them. Others justified it any way they could, like this guy seeing divine deliverance in some kind of drug-induced hallucinated revelation. But it always came back. The past was never past for a hunter. Certainly not for the hunter who had saved this guy. How many people had he and Dean dropped off at the ER, told them not to say a word about ghosts and vampires and werewolves and shifters, not one damn word about demons and devils in the night if they wanted to stay state side of a psych ward. How many they had patched up themselves and packed off? It came back to bite you, and it had come back to bite this guy.

Sam swallowed and focused on him. The stranger nodded, mouth twisting into a humourless hairpin of a smile.

"Tha's right. Nights I stayed awake thinking about it. The beast wasn't all inside me that was evil, it was _real._ The beast was real, and it was out there in the dark. It had murdered those People. God hadn't come to me, not ever. I had just been one lucky son o' bitch who slipped through is all." He cast Sam a grim smile, now edged in sadness.

"I don't mind tellin' you I was shit scared. Thought maybe it'd come back for me like, find me."

He shifted his weight, hard eyes stabbing Sam, pointing a finger. His tone was suddenly as hard as his expression.

"I figured I had to know. If the Lord hadn't seen fit to save me, if the beast was real, then so was _he._ He was out there, too. And if the beast was killin' again, maybe, just maybe, he'd be back and I'd get the truth outa him."

He was silent a moment, eyes fixed on Sam, who didn't push it.

The stranger nodded, and twisted away from Sam onto his feet with that same startling speed. He paced in a tight circle, swinging his arms in a way that reminded Sam of a teenage Dean, working off the charge when he was wound up.

"Yeah, I'd get him alright. I'd face the dark. So I went out there where the people were killed, and I waited. I waited for him." He turned around, face half shadowed, and stared at Sam.

"That's when I saw you, and your buddy here. I saw you raise a weapon to the beast and I knew. You were just like him. Even moved the same. I watched as he killed it and I took you down."

Sam's eyebrows shot up under his hair. It was _this guy, _alone, that had got the drop on him after Dean went down? Impressive. And at the moment, very worrying.

"And you're gonna give me the truth. You're gonna finish the story. Now."

. .

Sam stared at the stranger, torn in two.

He was right. The guy deserved the truth about what had happened to him. The truth about an event which had apparently changed his life.

At the same time, he had to be cautious. He was potentially giving what Dean called " the truth is out there speech" to a guy who believed he had been called by God to redeem himself. Sam believed in God. He had for a long time. Destroying this guy's faith when he had Sam cuffed and unable to fully defend himself with Dean possibly badly hurt carried huge risks. At the same time, Sam knew this guy wasn't going to be satisfied until he knew. Until he knew everything. This was the kind of guy who faced his fears. He had admitted to Sam that he was scared, but he had gone out into the night anyway to find a monster which had almost cost him his life. That wasn't the sort of man you could placate. Sam shifted, mind working fast. He wished Dean were conscious to help him out here, but maybe it was all for the better that he was out during the negotiating phase. His brother did tend to be all-go-no-stop, and Sam didn't need him antagonising the guy.

"Okay, what do you know?" He asked.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"You said you went out there looking for the beast, and the man you think saved you from it. Tell me everything you saw. Please, it's important."

The stranger rolled his neck, circling closer warily.

"Fine. I went out where the news said the people were killed. I wandered around a while, took a piece with me, something I had from ... From way back when, before I followed that preacher into the Lord. I was down by the river, when I saw somethin'. I saw a shadow, and followed it down near this old shipping warehouse. I knew scores went down there, knew girls sometimes took johns there, for some privacy, like. Out of the sniff of the law. So I followed. I hid, and I watched that beast come alive again. It came in, sniffin' around, looking for somethin' I guess. Then I saw this guy," he jerked a thumb at a still unresponsive Dean "and you followed him. The beast took him first and you all fought, then he shot it, but not before it slammed him. He went down and you went for him, and I smacked you in the head with the piece. End of story."

Sam nodded. "Anything else?"

"Ain't that enough?"

"I have to know. The first time you saw us was when we followed it into the warehouse, are you sure?"

"Yeah."

Sam nodded again, mostly to himself. So he hadn't seen the impala, or the weapons, or heard any of their conversation prior to the hunt. It informed only what he could conceal from this guy, if need be. It all depended on what happened next, which way this thing went.

Sam shifted his weight, straightening up.

"Can I ask you your name?"

The stranger considered a moment, suddenly tense, and Sam waited.

"Johnson. Dirk Johnson."

Ah, the irony. Sam did his best to ignore it.

"Okay, Dirk. I might have some answers for you. But with some conditions."

"Like what?"

Sam held up his wrists.

"Let me out of these cuffs, and let me check on my brother. He might be hurt."

"Uh uh, no way," Johnson replied, pacing in a circle on the edges of the light. "I seen how you fight. Kind of man who raises a weapon to a devil, hell you'll have me down in a beat. No way I lettin' you loose."

Sam couldn't say he hadn't expected as much, having taken this guy's measure.

"Okay, then just check on my brother. Make sure he's okay, do you know how to do that?"

Johnson paused a beat, then nodded. He approached Dean, and despite himself, Sam's pulse quickened. Johnson pressed his fingers against Dean's neck, lifted one of his eyelids, then pressed hard on one of his fingernails until Dean instinctively flinched.

"Out cold," he concluded. "Probably just got hit in the head when the beast slammed him. He ain't gonna die. Satisfied?"

"Maybe," Sam answered. It was something, and he didn't think Johnson was lying about it. With Dean not in immediate danger, he had options.

He looked up at Johnson, who was pacing again. Really looked. And something else about a routine werewolf hunt occurred to him.

"You saw it, didn't you. You saw it change back."

There was a moment of charged silence, before Johnson's face dipped into the light, his expression shifted in an instant, and he raked his hands through dark hair. Suddenly, he looked close to tears.

"Shit man, she was just a girl."

"Okay, look, Dirk, you know something weird is going on here, okay? Not just that monsters exist, and that was what attacked you that night. But that people turn into these things. Just people. Like that girl you saw."

"It doesn't explain anything!" Johnson yelled, both hands fisted in his hair. "Why I was spared, what happened, who _he _was and why he just left me, no answers, no nothin'!"

He was suddenly close again, but just out of Sam's reach, Dean's gun appearing in his hand from nowhere.

"And it don't explain you," he snarled.

"Calm down," Sam soothed, holding up his cuffed hands, his heartbeat spiking. God, how had they got to this? After everything, they were going to be shot dead by some random guy clawed by a werewolf once? He didn't think he could handle losing Dean, too. He had lost Mom, then Jess. And now Dad. He couldn't lose Dean, he couldn't. He had to get them out of this.

"Don't do anything you're going to regret. Or anything I'm going to regret," he added with what he hoped was a smile.

Johnson's expression buckled again into uncertainty and pain, and Sam did his best to tread lightly.

"Look, you've been through a lot man, but you got to give me some room. I might be able to give you some answers, but I have to make sure myself, first. Okay? Work with me here."

Johnson took three quick breaths, then flowed to his feet, taking the gun off Sam, who let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"What you want me to do?" Came the man's voice from the darkness.

"Let me make a call."

"You'll call the law."

"Dirk, you don't know me from a hole in the wall I know, but trust me, I want the cops in on this about as much as you do. Just one call, and it's not 911."

Johnson stared at Sam for at least a minute, long enough that Sam started to sweat.

"Fine," he said eventually, and his voice was once again cold, devoid of any trace of fear or uncertainty.

"One call, and it better get answers. You try to blow the whistle, I kill you, then your brother."

He pointed the gun at Dean in a way that Sam didn't like at all.

"And I dial."

Sam swallowed, praying silently.

"Deal."

.

The line clicked into life.

"Yeah?"

"Hey, Bobby, it's Sam."

"Sam," Bobby's voice held obvious delight and affection, both of which would have clenched his gut given everything that had happened with Dad, even if the call hadn't possibly served them all a death warrant. Johnson could trace the call, he had no doubt, if it all went south and that put all of them in danger.

"What's goin' on, kid?"

"Well we're in Louisiana, and might have found some action."

He glanced up at Johnson, holding the phone to his ear, and prayed he had made the right call, both figuratively and literally.

"Yeah? What you need from me?"

"Just a history lesson," Sam answered. "You know of anyone worked a job in Baton Rouge, probably about eleven years ago?"

"I know a lot of folk down that way," Bobby answered predictably. "Care to get specific?"

"I can't, Bobby. I just need to know if anyone, uh, sliced up some dog, around that time and place."

God bless him, Bobby's voice took on a gravity Sam recognised, a weight and understanding that he had heard in his voice when on the phone to Dad, Sam hiding around the corner of Bobby's hallway when he was a kid, more times than he wanted to contemplate.

"I got you, kid. Probably most useful, I know your dad hunted a wolf down there, 'bout ten years ago."

Sam squeezed his eyes shut, acknowledging. Somehow, with everything that had happened, he knew it.

"Thanks, Bobby. It means a lot."

"I'll see you, Sam. At the place we know. Three days. Good luck."

"Thanks, Bobby."

Johnson snapped the cellphone shut.

. .

Dean chose that moment to come around.

In a mirror of his brother, Sam watched as consciousness slipped back in to animate his still body. A moment later, he registered he was bound and his head snapped up, eyes hot, and struggled against the restraint.

"Dean."

Dean's eyes checked to catch on Sam.

"Sam."

He jerked his head to take in Johnson, still crouching just out of Sam's reach, holding the cellphone in one hand and Dean's gun in the other.

"What the - "

"Be cool, I'm handling this," Sam attempted to cut him off.

"Like hell," Dean snapped, "who is this guy? Why the hell are we tied up?"

"His name is Dirk. He just wants some answers."

"Oh I'll give him a damn answer -"

"Dean! He knew Dad."

On cue, Dean went still and silent, big eyes on Sam.

"What?"

It was a cruel cheap shot and he knew it, but it got Dean off a warpath that might have got them killed.

"He met Dad, a couple of years ago, on a hunt. Wolves both times."

Dean stared at Sam, then Johnson, apparently lost for words on that subject. He usually was when it came to talking about anything to do with Dad these days, Sam thought darkly. Dean focused on Johnson instead.

"This guy's no hunter. And if he's sitting here still breathing he's not a victim. Care to explain why we've been cuffed by one freaked out witness who may or may not have had something to do with a hunt before?"

Sam sighed as Dean strained again at the rope, twisting his wrists pointlessly.

"As I said. He just wants to know what happened," Sam repeated.

"It's none of his damn business. I should be the one asking what happened here," Dean snapped, and Sam could hear echoes of his own thoughts behind his brother's words. Yes, people were entitled to the truth about what happened to them, but with he and Sam bound, both likely concussed to some degree thanks to the werewolf, this could all very easily spin out of control if the truth he thought he wanted freaked this guy out enough to try to kill them.

"You don't know if anything he's told you is true, Sam."

"Yeah actually I do. I called Bobby. Dad hunted a wolf in Baton Rouge about ten years ago. And Dirk followed us into the warehouse tonight, thinking it was Dad." He tipped his chin at Dirk. "Show him."

Without a word, Johnson pulled up his shirt, the old scratches visible in the lamplight.

"Okay," Dean said, shifting again and looking up at Johnson consideringly. "How do you want to end this thing, Dirk?"

Johnson flexed his fist around Dean's gun, uncertainty again shimmering through him.

"I just - I just want to know what happened, for real this time. The truth. That night changed my life. I thought the good Lord had given me another chance and for all this time, I lived my whole life to that tune. And it wasn't true, none of it. I don't like bein' made a fool of, believin' somethin' just 'cause it's easier. I want to know what that beast was, how it got like that, how you killed it, how you even knew how to do that, who the hell you are and mostly, who the hell _he _was, and why he never gave me none of these answers himself."

. .

In the end, Sam rolled the dice. It was the only way any of this was getting anywhere. Dirk was not going to free two guys he had seen literally killing his worst nightmare, probably thinking they'd take him out, too. Dean didn't appear to be badly hurt, and though his head was still ringing and his shoulder hurt like hell, Sam wasn't completely defenceless if Johnson decided to freak out. He slanted his brother a look, to which Dean gave the equivalent of a shrug.

So, Dirk Johnson got his truth - all of it. Monsters were real, that thing back at the warehouse was a werewolf, who had originally been the girl now dead in its place. Werewolves were killed with a silver bullet to the heart. He and Dean were hunters, raised to kill all things of supernatural evil. As for _him_, he was a hunter just as they were. He was John Winchester, their father. And he likely didn't give Johnson the 411 at the time because he didn't want to screw him up. He'd already been clawed to within an inch of his life, why dump monster reality on him as well? Most people didn't want to know. Most couldn't deal with knowing. Dad did his best just to get them help, and let them get on with their lives.

Johnson crouched in front of Sam, his expression tight, but not worryingly so. Dark eyes skittered between the brothers. He bounced one leg against his elbow, curling his fist around Dean's gun.

"You ain't shittin' me?"

"Swear," Dean agreed.

"Where is he? I want to talk to him."

A quick, sad smile tugged at Sam's lips and he dipped his head.

"Uh, I'm afraid you can't."

"I'm makin' damn sure this time, no more bullshit. I want to see his face, I ain't never forgettin' that face. I want to hear it from him, then I'll believe it."

"I'm sorry, Dirk but ... he died."

Surprise washed into Johnson's expression, transparent and genuine.

"He what? He _died_?"

Sam nodded at the floor, his throat tight. He couldn't look up at Dean, not yet. Johnson's shocked voice continued from somewhere above his head.

"Damn, kinda didn't think about that, not about a man like that who kills monsters. What happened to him?"

"We're - we're not really sure, exactly," Sam forced himself to answer. "There might have been a demon involved."

He didn't even know why he was telling this guy any of this. He pulled in a deep breath and made himself look at Dean.

His brother was sitting perfectly still, sightless eyes on the floor, his face expressionless and two shades paler than usual. Sam closed his eyes briefly. What the hell did he expect? Somehow he wanted Dean to scream and throw punches and curse Dad with every word he knew for dying on them. To know his brother felt the same pain Sam did and couldn't imagine how he was going to stand continuing to feel. He wanted Dean to let it out, to know his brother was going to be okay, he was going to be able to deal with this. Because at times like this, watching Dean shut down like someone had thrown a switch inside, Sam honestly worried that he would never be okay again.

"A devil," Johnson whispered. Eleven years of faith apparently didn't just rub off after hunter 101. Sam was grateful for that at least.

An idea occurred to Sam a little late that could actually wrap things up nicely.

"Look, Dirk, we can show you proof. We'll cuff ourselves together, you come back up to the road with us and you'll see."

. .

Dean cranked the trunk of the impala up, hooked the nearest duffle and rooted around inside it. Sam stood silently behind him, still cuffed to Dean's left wrist. Johnson had stayed a cautious distance behind the brothers on the short walk back to the road, Dean's gun pointed at their backs, but Sam could feel the man's distrust starting to bleed out. Dean eventually found what he was looking for, straightened up, paused a moment, and handed it to Johnson. He watched the man cautiously from beneath his lashes.

Johnson stared at the old photo in his hands - the one that dad always carried, jammed into the corner of the mirror of whatever shitty motel they were camped out in. John Winchester and his boys. On dad's lap Sam couldn't have been more than six; a ten-year-old Dean perched on the impala at his side.

Sam watched as Johnson's expression emptied into utter shock, and his breath stuttered out of him.

"Holy - holy shit it's him! It's really him! And that's -"

He stumbled back from the impala, taking the whole of the car into view.

Wide eyes wandered back to the brothers, jaw dropped.

"Holy shit. It's you."

Weirdly, getting confirmation that John Winchester was real was apparently spooking Johnson more than seeing the werewolf.

"Dirk? Still with us?" Dean asked after Johnson had been staring silently with empty eyes at the trunk of the impala for several moments.

He snapped back to reality with a shake of his head, dragging his hand through his hair and over his face.

"Yeah, yeah I'm ... It's just that, for eleven years, this has been the face of God himself. I don't know what that makes the two of you," he added with a shaken smile. Despite everything, both brothers almost managed to return it. Johnson looked down at the photo again, at the man who wore God's face.

"He's really dead?"

Sam nodded. Dean watched Johnson with an oddly measuring look.

"Wow." Johnson leaned back against the impala, still staring at the photo, apparently no longer worried about being jumped by his companions. It seemed even seeing a picture of John Winchester again had driven everything else out of his head.

"I wish I could have seen him, just once more. Finally thanked him for saving my life."

Sam swallowed, his eyes suddenly filling up. God, he could have said exactly the same thing. How bad he wanted to see Dad again, just one more time. One time to tell him despite their friction, he had never hated him a moment in his life. Even the night he left for Stanford, trying to skirt around a mediating Dean and screaming at the top of his lungs that he was leaving. He was quitting hunting. He was going to go to school and be normal, and have a real life. Even when Dad told him if he walked out that door, never come back.

Sam blinked the tears out of his eyes and shot an instinctive glance at his brother, to find Dean watching him carefully. Sam thanked God for the dark for once.

Johnson shook his brain back into his head, pulled in a breath and handed Dean back the photo.

"Sorry."

Dean nodded in acknowledgement, brushing a thumb over the old picture.

Johnson pulled in a breath, ejected the clip from the gun, pegged it into the river and handed it to Dean with a dark smile. Dean returned it - it was the kind of move he could appreciate. Johnson dug into his pocket, passing Sam the key to the cuffs.

"What are you supposed to do now?" He asked as Sam uncuffed them.

It was an odd way of phrasing it, but Sam assumed he meant the hunt.

"Well, normally we'd be getting rid of a body right now, but after a werewolf dies it shifts back into human form, just like you saw. At least that girl's family can give her a decent burial.

Johnson nodded. "I'll do it."

Sam was surprised at that. "You sure?"

"Yah. I mean you guys did the deed right, and if you believe all that shit about forensics, if you called it in they might sew you up." He gave another small smile. "Then there'd be no one around to save assholes like me."

Sam nodded, and on impulse, held out his hand. Johnson flinched at first, as wary as the street cat Sam had compared him to, before he took it.

"Call it in to the local PD only, from a pay phone, well clear of the warehouse. Don't give your name, and don't go back there, okay? There's no reason you should go down for this either."

Johnson nodded, pushing himself off the impala.

"And Dirk? Don't give upon God just yet, okay?"

Johnson gave a genuine smile at that, an expression that twisted that hairpin into something entirely different.

"Well now, he'll still always be wearin' that face. Take care, y'all."

He raised a hand in farewell, which Sam and Dean returned, before he disappeared into the dark. Both Winchesters stood still and stared after him for a moment, leaning against the side of the impala, hands buried in pockets. Finally Dean rolled away from the car and circled around to the driver's seat. Sam followed without a word.

Dean was quiet on the fifteen minute drive back to the strand motel they had booked up in. Sam wanted to talk about it, but couldn't think of anything he could say. By all appearances Dean was more interested in just pretending nothing had happened. Sam sighed and focused on the darkness outside the window.

Dean stuck to single syllables all the way through a burger and fries, and Sam was suddenly too tired to fight it out of him. The mixture of the wolf and Johnson going for KO, what they both needed was some sleep. When Sam came out of the bathroom Dean was already laying on his back in a tshirt and boxers, one elbow bent behind his head, staring sightlessly at the stained ceiling.

Not even bothering to swap his jeans for blankets in the mild weather, Sam dropped himself gratefully onto the bed and killed the light.

He was tired enough to sleep, but his mind rolled over the hunt, and Johnson. And Dad.

"I'm sorry." Dean's voice was soft in the darkness.

"Sorry for what?"

"For the way I been acting. For what I said about you and Dad."

Wow. Sam kept very still.

"I know you loved him Sammy. And so did he."

Dean's voice sounded thick, and Sam fought the impulse to turn on the light to see his face. Dean would probably shut up if he did. Sam's throat tightened for the second time that night. Still, he knew better than to tackle Dean head on about this. Sam swallowed hard.

"Y'know, even though I didn't see him much these past few years, he was always still out there, y'know? Like he was still here, even if I wasn't talking to him. I miss him, Dean."

"I know, Sammy. Me too."

Sam drew an unsteady breath which he knew Dean heard. It hadn't been lost on Sam that Dad had been Johnson's face of God, and he was sure it wasn't lost on Dean either. Sam could have said the same for his brother. All those years while he and Dad kept it stubborn and proud, Dean spent hunting with him. Nothing Sam knew of bonded people more than facing down life and death together. He felt Dad's death all muddled up with guilt and sorrow. He wondered how Dean felt, And couldn't imagine. He wasn't holding his breath on his brother admitting any of it.

"Dean ... are you going to be okay?"

Sam knew the answer before his brother opened his mouth.

"I'm fine, Sam. You will be too. I promise."

Sam heard Dean roll over and knew the conversation was Done. Yeah, _take care of Sammy _had likely been Dad's final order, and if Dean needed that as a lifeboat right now, Sam was just going to have to live with that. He closed his eyes, and wasn't aware of when he crossed over into sleep.


End file.
